Workers` Illnesses Spark Questions About Stealth Plant Materials

September 18, 1988|By New York Times News Service.

BURBANK, CALIF. — At least 160 workers at a Lockheed Corp. plant here, many of whom are believed to be involved in building a top-secret fighter jet, have become sick, spawning a whirlwind of questions about the materials used in the plant. In a wave of lawsuits seeking financial compensation, the workers say they are suffering health problems ranging from nausea and minor rashes to disorientation, memory lapses and cancer.

Their suits contend that their illnesses were caused by exposure to chemicals critical to the manufacture of the plant`s highly classified projects.

Five plaintiffs have died, according to their lawyers.

In legal documents, Lockheed denied the charges and said further that the plaintiffs knowingly assumed any risks that may have occurred at the plant.

But company officials as a matter of policy declined to discuss the charges.

Rod Hanks, director of human resources at the plant, said workers had made health complaints against the company from time to time but that never in the plant`s nearly 50 years of existence have so many complaints been made at once.

In an effort to limit detection by radar, the fighter, which aerospace experts call the F-19, or the Stealth fighter, is believed to use some designs and materials similar to those believed used by the Stealth bomber being developed by the Northrop Corp.

Union officials who represent the Lockheed workers said they knew of no similar complaints by workers building the bomber.

Work-related illnesses like those cited in the lawsuits are nothing new in the aerospace industry, but the situation here is different because of the intense secrecy surrounding the fighter.

Workers are wary of speculating publicly about what may have caused their illnesses because they are not allowed to discuss their work.

To do so would be to risk dis-missal and prosecution disclo-sing classified information.

Indeed, workers say they are not allowed to fully explain their situation to their own doctors.

Moreover, scientists say that disclosing how the substances cited by the lawsuits are used could give other countries clues to building the secret aircraft.

The lawsuits cite more than 50 chemicals, but neither the lawyers nor the lawsuits say how the chemicals are being used.

Workers and supervisors said virtually all the sick employees worked in one area of the plant, where several hundred people work at any one time.

Lockheed and the workers` lawyers refused to be more spe-cific on the proportion of sick people in that area`s work force.